Match Thread - Round 14, Collingwood

[wolftone57]

Come on, has everyone forgotten all the cheap frees we got in the first half? Skill errors have let us down; nothing to do with umpiring.

Where were u I noticed a few cheap Pies frees in both halves but cheapies for us? Where exactly were they? In the forward line lioke theirs, no! In the Centre line like theirs, no! Oh in the back half, at CHB, HBF, KWL! So thats our cheap frees, theirs got goals or points, as Dawes push against Grundy, all he did was lunge forwars & the Umpie blew it up. The replay clearly showed Grundy not interfering at all just holding ground after Dawes over ran the contest. There were several incidents in the last that should have gone our way in close situations but they only went theirs. ROK push in back;ignored, Kennedy push in back;ignored, Hannaberry push in face;ignored, Swann too long in tackle; free kick. I don't think we did badly but I don't think the Umpies did well & if a team is Pies, Blues, Bombers or Cats who draw crowds in Melb then they get a good go

[Foreign Legion]

Not a bad effort from the Swans tonight - but the bloke we miss is G.Rohan.

...if we get him back we are a 2 goal better side imho.

[Swans500]

Looking ahead...we have very winable games right up to round 23!!!!....based on tonights' endeavour....

[top40]

And so it continues. Another loss to Collingwood and another loss to a top 4 team. We are just fodder for the top 4 this season.

Cruiser you have grown very cynical. You would have loved the atmosphere if you'd been there. And the guy who usually sits next to you at ANZ is feeling mildly satisfied by our brave defeat.

[wolftone57]

Means your proud of the effort like most of us. Although you'll get the odd few who can't resist a whinge. Let them wallow because I'm a proud Swans supporter tonight because not only did the get within a kick of the reigning premiers and best team in the comp but I think they showed that within a couple of years our premiership window will be wide open and who would dare to bet against us jumping through that window.

Get with the plot Big Al haven't you heard lately, these guys have been beaten this year by Geelong, so I think that makes the Cats the best in the comp at the moment as they have not lost a game. it peeves me when people make claims for an opponent that are clearly untrue. I saw the Pies/Cats game on Telly & the Cats were definitely the best team even with injuries (No Ottens, Scarlett etc), the Pies full team. I believe the Blues & the Hawks will beat the Pies & next week have a cool 50 on the Hawks especially at the G as I believe their young group will kill the Pies for hardness. That is what we lack, we need to be harder, give Currie a go as he is really hard & gives no quarter. I like Seabs since he has come back but if we have to do another 2c without Mummy then bring the young bloke in & give him a go. White is crap!!!!! Jesse is too easily knocked out of the contest for a man of his size, same as Fitzie, looks good but delivers dead nuts.

[Nico]

No mention of Bird as yet. He appeared to get plenty of the footy and was in everything when the ball hit the ground. Plenty of praise is heaped on Kennedy but I reckon Bird covers more ground than him and his follow up work is excellent.

[ScottH]

No mention of Bird as yet. He appeared to get plenty of the footy and was in everything when the ball hit the ground. Plenty of praise is heaped on Kennedy but I reckon Bird covers more ground than him and his follow up work is excellent.

Sure, but Bird doesn't do as much with it.
Some lazy efforts at times I thought.

[wolftone57]

No mention of Bird as yet. He appeared to get plenty of the footy and was in everything when the ball hit the ground. Plenty of praise is heaped on Kennedy but I reckon Bird covers more ground than him and his follow up work is excellent.

both Birdie & Kanga played very well but it was Kanga that broke the packs when it counted in the last half & if he had of got the free he should have in the last it may have been a different result. Bolts stepped up in the last 3 after a laMENTABLE 1ST. I wish Jesse was our saviour in attack & 2nd ruck but I don't think so. LRT was a bit out of touch down back as he has been playing forward too long. I thought he could have played the whole game back last week & should have, just bad coaching. We contested very well in the last half as we were killed in the first & if not for their bad kicking we would have been looking at a thrashing at half time. We were good after half time as I think our blokes truly believed for the first time in ages they could win. Just bad luck & a bit of bad umpiring in the end.

[ugg]

This is my analysis.

Before the game I thought 3 things had to happen for us to win.

1. Collingwood had to play below par. TICK
2. We had to play above par. TICK
3. We had to get lucky. A BIT EACH WAY

It was a great effort, especially when you contrast it to last week's game, but in reality Collingwood should have had it wrapped up by 3 quarter time. That's why ol' Micky was so testy on the sidelines. They were the number 1 side in goalkicking accuracy going into this game. You'll never see Daisy Thomas miss 3 shots like those again.

Our ball use, in particular going forward is a mess - we rely too much on having players run forward into space rather than have proper forwards leading out from the forward line. Hawthorn showed yesterday that you don't need to have big, dominant forwards to kick goals, you need a good structure in place combined with good skills. Down the other end, I really felt for Reg and LRT as Cloke and Dawes were just too big. One-on-one there aren't many defenders who can go with them and their contested marking. They needed help down back but the other defenders were too focussed on the Pies' smalls to really give our talls a hand.

Horse deserves credit for the game plan tonight though. The second quarter aside, we weren't sucked into the vortex that is the Collingwood forward press and did manage to break it often. Using LJ at the kick-ins was a surprise and should be persevered with. He offers something different from the usual suspects Kennelly, Malceski, Mattner and Shaw - in particular his ability to clear the 50m line and beyond to break the congestion of the zone.

Losing KJ will be a big blow, not sure what the prognosis is but let's hope he's not out for too long. While guys like JPK and ROK are integral parts of the midfield setup, if they went down (touch wood) it wouldn't be so bad as we have similar types in Moore or Parker to replace them but we don't have anyone who can give us KJ's clean ball-winning ability from the stoppages.

[Big Al]

Get with the plot Big Al haven't you heard lately, these guys have been beaten this year by Geelong, so I think that makes the Cats the best in the comp at the moment as they have not lost a game. it peeves me when people make claims for an opponent that are clearly untrue. I saw the Pies/Cats game on Telly & the Cats were definitely the best team even with injuries (No Ottens, Scarlett etc), the Pies full team. I believe the Blues & the Hawks will beat the Pies & next week have a cool 50 on the Hawks especially at the G as I believe their young group will kill the Pies for hardness. That is what we lack, we need to be harder, give Currie a go as he is really hard & gives no quarter. I like Seabs since he has come back but if we have to do another 2c without Mummy then bring the young bloke in & give him a go. White is crap!!!!! Jesse is too easily knocked out of the contest for a man of his size, same as Fitzie, looks good but delivers dead nuts.

Cats won by only 3 points so I'm entitled to my opinion to think the Pies are still the benchmark. If you watch all the AFL shows you'll find that most commentators hold that same belief. So I'm pretty up with the plot thanks.

Agree on White (he's frustrating isn't he) but I'm not convinced on Currie to be honest. I watch a lot of reserves and while he goes okay j just have my doubts he can make that next step. Pyke is the one we need to bring back. He looked short of a gallop today but after a couple of runs in the Ressies I'm sure he'll be knocking on the door of selection.

[R-1]

I think I need to take back some bad things I've said about Jarrad McVeigh.

[Nico]

Sure, but Bird doesn't do as much with it.
Some lazy efforts at times I thought.

Gee Scott I could argue that Kennedy just blazes away going forward. A couple of times in the last quarter he was clear going forward of centre and went wide to a contest when it was clear that when we went direct to about 20 metres out the Pies defence got shaky. What both Bird and Kennedy did in the second half was get boot to ball under pressure which seemed to catch Collingwood out and make it a one on one contest with the ball bouncing and bobbing around. What we did better this week was have players inside 50 metres at the contest, rather than the opposing defenders being let just whisk the ball away.

[dimelb]

Terrific effort from the boys tonight. I'm not prepared to say the umps cost us the game, there were other ways we could have won/avoided losing. But an exciting and immensely encouraging performance from blokes all over the park. Macca, Josh, Seaby, Hanners, Goodes, Bird (who had good reason to be exhausted), Reid, Shaw (great game on Dale Haircut, who irritates the life out of me, wonderful to see Rhyce getting up his nose). Add Marty, ROK, Bevo, Jack while he was on the ground, Jesse in the ruck and at times around the ground, Malceski, where do you stop? We put on fantastic pressure, as good as anything I've seen from the group this season, and Collingwood were making mistakes.
And I take no notice of the "If Collingwood had kicked straight ..."; there have been times we haven't kicked straight and it was our fault, the boot was on the other foot tonight, or the chewy was on the other boot, or something, and if my aunt had cojones she'd be my uncle, and so on.
It might be the happiest loss I've ever seen.

[Go Swannies]

I'm just home and can't believe any of the negative comments were from anyone at the game. The Pies are a great team with awesome skills. But we looked the harder team at the end - though they straightened out enough to win as champion teams do. I'm guessing that the negatives were from those watching on TV and being brainwashed by the Pie fan commentators. If Goodes started the game as he finished we would have won comfortably. Macca was on fire (the first time for a few years?), Bird was in everything. If you think we were sloppy you weren't seeing the pressure out there. And, although we let them get free a few times - as we did (!) our structure was so much better and we looked a lot better team than we have in a lot of our sloppy wins. If (make that IF) we keep playing like that we won't lose many games for the rest of the year.

I hate the 'honourable loss' idea but if there is one we had it tonight. And I would have paid a year's membership just to hear the ground go off when we went in front in Q4. Good times ahead I'm thinking.

[Nico]

I think I need to take back some bad things I've said about Jarrad McVeigh.

Why? He desereved a bake after last week and to his credit had a real go, but that 50 metres was plain dumb.